Topological hard-core bosons on the honeycomb lattice

TL;DR

This paper explores the topological properties of hardcore bosons on a honeycomb lattice, revealing their connection to magnon excitations in quantum spin systems and implications for ultracold bosonic gases.

Contribution

It demonstrates the mapping between hardcore bosons and quantum spin models, showing that bosons inherit nontrivial topological features of magnons in a honeycomb lattice.

Findings

Hardcore bosons exhibit topological edge states similar to magnons.

Computed Berry curvature and conductivities for the system.

Mapped the bosonic system to a spin-1/2 quantum XY model with Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction.

Abstract

This paper presents a connection between the topological properties of hardcore bosons and that of magnons in quantum spin magnets. We utilize the Haldane-like hardcore bosons on the honeycomb lattice as an example. We show that this system maps to a spin-$1/2$ quantum XY model with a next-nearest-neighbour Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction. We obtain the magnon excitations of the quantum spin model and compute the edge states, Berry curvature, thermal and spin Nernst conductivities. Due to the mapping from spin variables to bosons, the hardcore bosons possess the same nontrivial topological properties as those in quantum spin system. These results are important in the study of magnetic excitations in quantum magnets and they are also useful for understanding the control of ultracold bosonic quantum gases in honeycomb optical lattices, which is experimentally accessible.